Wind Fill

This past Wednesday I got out to shoot some pictures with the photo club. Sox and I had been in Saxe Point Park recently and had noticed the flowers, so that was where I decided the club should meet. The sun was out, but so was the breeze. Taking pictures of flowers in the breeze is always a difficult taks. You set up your shot, wait for the right conditions, then just as you squeeze the shutter release, the wind kicks up again. This can be incredibly frustrating.

Sometimes it is better to work with the conditions rather than fight them. Keep the shutter open a little longer, and aim for a blurry flower while the background is still. This can be an interesting effect.

I was quite happy with my shots. I even used my flash for a few of them to lighten up the shadows and to fill in the details.

Pics are here.

LOTD – Camping Fido

The ultimate tent for car camping. Sleeps 10, has multiple rooms, and vestibules. The best part? It has a pet den. Yep, pet den. I suppose you could also use it for coolers, chairs, other stuff, but why deprive fido of camping with the family? Kinda give new meaning to pup tent huh?

From the Product Specifications:
Sleep Capacity: Sleeps up to 10 people and one large dog

That is awesome.

Steamed Ordering

Little story to tell about why I sometimes detest shopping online.

I am in the market for some new leg armour for mountain biking. I went to the Troy Lee Designs website saw they had some you could buy, so proceeded through the checkout. I gave my billing address, and the mailing address (both in Canada, and Canada was in a drop down), and submitted my order. I was thinking great, these should be here in a week or so, and I will be happy.

I got an email today that my order has been cancelled and that I was to contact some distributor in Canada and was provided with a 780 area code phone number. I was also directed to consult their “ordering policy regarding International Orders”.

I was getting steamed, so I went back to the main site, hunted around a bit, and eventually found what the customer service rep was referring to.

INTERNATIONAL ORDERS:

You can place an order with a Troy Lee Designs distributor in your country. To locate a distributor in your country, go to the www.troyleedesigns.com and click on the dealer link.

In a follow up email I was told

We refer you to a distributor in your area to save you a lot of money
in shipping charges.

This is complete bullshit.

First off, if I want to order from them and pay a little more for shipping, then why do they care? The armour was priced at $18 USD, and shipping was $6USD. Tack on some kind of brokerage fee for the border, and it is still cheaper than what I can buy locally.

Second, 780 is the Edmonton area. Not what I would call local. Why would I call some stranger and order something over the phone and give my credit card. That just screams for identity theft.

Third, why did their shopping cart checkout software let me complete the transaction if there was no way they were willing to honour it? They knew I wanted it shipped to Canada (I chose that from a drop down remember), and apparently they don’t want to ship to their Canadian customers, so why not put up a screen saying that, and provide a link to the policy on International Ordering?

If they can’t do this simple customer courtesy, then what will they do if I have a problem with a product? “Oh, you’re in Canada, we don’t want to deal with you.”

I’m pissed because I am missing out on a good deal for leg armour, and they wasted my time by using a crappy, misleading piece of checkout software. I really like my current set of TLD leg armour, but with service like this, why should I buy from them again?